Ling-Ling Chang’s latest mailers against Josh Newman in the 29th State Senate District race ought to seal the case against voting for her. I could remain very calm and methodical about them, especially based on some of the research and analysis I did — but instead I think that she’s earned a full-on rant. Enjoy!

“Hi! We become a part of this story at about the 1000-word mark!”

Accusing Ling-Ling Chang of misbehavior is sort of unfair because she is one of the most passive figures in recent Orange County history, willing to just be swept along on the conveyer belt to stardom on which she was placed by State Senator Bob Huff (with an ill-advised boost by State GOP Chair Jim Brulte). Much as with the legislation placed on a batting tee for her to “sponsor” — like the one that may still kill off the independent bookstore industry in California — she doesn’t write ’em, probably barely reads ’em, and generally doesn’t seem to understand ’em. She takes to the figurehead role well — except when she’s cursing someone for calling her a liar.

But at some point Ling-Ling has to take responsibility even for things that have been handed to her on a platter — especially campaign literature with her name on it or by an “independent” expenditure in support of her campaign. (I mean, she could denounce it, I suppose. Hahahahaha, I made a funny!) So the latest desperate attack — and I mean desperate — on her opponent Josh Newman has to be placed in her tab.

She is searching for the killer “closing argument” to put her ahead of Newman — the issue that she wants voters to think about as they fill out their ballots. And what she — Dishonest (and now Disgusting) Dave Gilliard, actually, but still “her” in the sense that she could say “no” — comes up with is … a flirtatious letter that Newman produced in his mid-20s to invite a female friend to a hockey game, jokingly using a piece of official stationery! Stop the presses!

Newman used the word “underpants,” Ling-Gilliard emphasizes! Yes, he did. His prospective date worked for the Joe Boxer company, which produced sterling silver tea sets … no, just kidding! They produced … underpants. Something that, if you have a decent sense of humor — and especially if you’re a 25-year-old guy — is a funny thing to allude to in asking a female friend to a hockey game.

That’s it. Nada mas. And now Ling-Ling — and I am not making this up — wants you to judge his behavior as being worse than Donald Trump’s “locker room talk.”

Worse. Than. Donald. Trump.

OK, this is so boneheaded that I’m not sure that it requires explanation, but let’s spell things out so that even Ling-Ling — that even Dishonest Dave Gilliard, who may have just managed to get himself blacklisted from ever working on another young woman’s campaign — can understand.

Newman’s “jocular little lark” (about 25 years ago, in his mid-20s): as a prank, used a piece of his-boss-the-Mayor’s stationery to send an in-jokey fake letter asking his friend who works in the underwear industry to a hockey game and in doing so used the word “underwear.”

versus

Trump’s “locker room talk” with a talk-show host (about ten years ago, at around age 60): bragging that as a famous man he could extend his mercifully short fingers and “grab women by the pussy” — by which he could have meant vulva, or could have meant labia, or could have meant actually trying to crowbar those stubby digits into a vagina, and I don’t know and I don’t care, I just want this to stop! — ignoring even the existence of impediments like “underwear” and “modesty” and “rights” and “law.”

Are these … the same level of infraction? No? Then …

WHICH IS WORSE, GOD DAMN IT, LING-LING? WHICH IS WORSE???

I ask that question of course because … YOU ASK THAT QUESTION!

Oh yes, you do! Read your own literature, Assemblywoman Chang!

If I didn’t know better, I’d guess that Ling-Ling Chang is an unattractive middle-aged white guy who has the sex appeal of a hacked-up fur ball, but is less lovable.

WHAT’S WORSE?

WHAT’S WORSE?

Ling-Ling, did you forget your Brain-Brain?

Tell you what, Assemblywoman! I’m not going to tell you what’s worse! Instead YOU tell US “What’s Worse!”

Come on, you can answer this one! After all, you have a college degree!You attended Harvard! … um … you’re anatomically female!

Would YOU rather have some old creeper try to pat, stroke, or insert some portion of his fingers into your genitals without your consent and against your will?

Or would you rather get a flirtatious letter from an attractive guy you already know and like that makes reference to the fact of your working for an underpants manufacturer?

WHAT’S WORSE, LING-LING?

…

Wait, hold on a moment. I just spotted something.

Technically … you’re not talking about their actions at all!

Technically, the big issue of the campaign — the issue on which you want us to compare Josh Newman and Donald Trump, is … how they described their actions!

What’s worse, “CALLING IT” either “locker talk” or “jocular lark”?

Is your point, Dave-Ling, thatyou think that Trump used a better euphemism for a humongously worse act — while Newman has too rich of a vocabulary?

Because if so, Ling-Gilliard, you old/young man/woman, you are one diseased enchilada.

Victimization of women is a serious issue this year, thanks to Trump’s serial forcing himself on women. (Yeah, and raping that 13-year-old, sure, but that trial isn’t until next month.) How do you possibly justify your “WHAT’S WORSE?” without trivializing that issue? (Hint: you don’t. And you didn’t. You trivialized it while capitalizing on it — which is redeemed only by your total lack of credibility.)

And that brings us to your other mailer on this most important issue of the campaign, “Undergate.” Not the drought, not education, just — splat! — this.

Remember those three women up there at the top, Ling-Ling? One Asian woman that looks like she was a victim of something bad, and another two that seem not to be sharing the same mood?

If the Asian woman is solemn, why is the white woman smiling? I don’t understand! WHYYYYY?

So these women, having very different apparent responses to Josh Newman’s prank letter to his Joe Boxer employee friend, believe that Josh Newman is immoral — while you and those around you prepare to support Donald Trump?

Really, you’re a moralist now, Ling-Ling? How do you feel about state legislators cheating on their spouses? I think that you may be pretty familiar with one who has, right? How do you feel about the women with whom they cheat? If the jokey (or as some say, “jocular”) flirtatious letter raises your hackles, you must have a lot to say about other matters of sexual morality! Remember, Ling Ling, I ran for this seat four years ago against your political mentor! There were things that I didn’t bring up, but they’re pretty well known! And you’re campaigning on SEXUAL ETHICS!

Lady, you have got some nerve!

That picture, by the way? Unless it’s a stock photo — and I don’t see it on the Web, as one usually does in such circumstances — you stole it.

And so on. You, Ling-Dave, presumably after asking an intern or something like that to “find a photo of an Asian woman looking vaguely unhappy, standing next to another woman who can be chopped in half, but for the love of God do not use a photo where an African American woman is STANDING NEXT TO the Asian woman because that doesn’t poll well!” and came up with a photo from a nice-seeming women’s and family services group in Oregon, which you then swiped!

(Luckily, I do have their phone number, so I can call tomorrow to see how they feel about an anti-choice, anti-equality, filthy-mouthed Republican party girl who’s a puppet for a bunch of reactionary old white guys using their photo for her campaign.)

The good news for this, from a political perspective, is that for Gilliard-Ling to actually scrape this deeply into the bottom of the barrel like this probably means that Ling-Ling is not only well-behind, but that there’s no better attack out there that’s working. But no matter — once you’ve gotten paid to deliver a series of mailers for even a lightweight candidate like this, you still have to come up with something, Dave-Ling Chang! Am I right?

The best thing about this, actually, is how completely it obliterates your similarly bogus attacks on Farrah Khan — to which we turn tomorrow. Thanks,Disgusting Dave!

About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-retired due to disability, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally runs for office against bad people who would otherwise go unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that.
Deposed as Northern Vice Chair of DPOC in April 2014 (in violation of Roberts Rules) when his anti-corruption and pro-consumer work in Anaheim infuriated the Building Trades and Teamsters in spring 2014, who then worked with the lawless and power-mad DPOC Chair to eliminate his internal oversight.
Expelled from DPOC in October 2018 (in violation of Roberts Rules) for having endorsed Spitzer over Rackauckas -- which needed to be done.
None of his pre-putsch writings ever spoke for the Democratic Party at the local, county, state, national, or galactic level, nor do they now.
One of his daughters co-owns a business offering campaign treasurer services to Democratic candidates and the odd independent. He is very proud of her. He doesn't directly profit from her work and it doesn't affect his coverage. (He does not always favor her clients, though she might hesitate to take one that he truly hated.)
He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.)

14 Comments

…and we wonder why my GOP is doing so shamefully with voters. This stuff is it. Too many campaign professionals have had their brains replaced by something cloned from samples of Matt Cunningham’s gray matter. They imbibe the same flavor of KoolAid and wonder why they can’t seem to reach the heart of the electorate anymore. Why haven’t candidates wised up to the out of touch collection of self-serving insiders running the campaign gigs every few years? They don’t GET IT. Yes, they occasionally win elections, simply because SOMEONE has to, but I have a very difficult time buying the idea that candidates win based on this nonsense being stuffed into their mailboxes at a rate of 3 or 4 PER DAY! And it reflects poorly on a political party that deserves better. I will defend a small government, fiscally conservative, pro-life platform with my last breath, but with this garbage littering my mail it is hard to CATCH my breath!

How many of these images appear real? Does even ONE of these look like she is “out and about in the community?” We have a phony school room with kids ranging from 1st to 6th grade. Displays on the walls can’t decide what subject is being taught, and no self-respecting school teacher would ever let students into a room so sparsely decorated. Then we have a “medical-ish” office…with some medical/dental-ish professional right outta central casting, and the office-manager-type-person there suddenly morphs into a “typical office worker” elsewhere in the shots. I am embarrassed. This is the most horrifyingly bad campaign I have seen in ages (although nothing touches the inane drivel of Sidhu.)

This ranks right up there with Schroeder’s flying monkeys sending mail in Anaheim Council District 4 telling voters Arturo Ferreras is a bad man for promoting a policy of District Elections that voters overwhelmingly approved in ALL sections of the city. Yep, you can pretty much SEE the white guys sitting around the Balboa Bay Club, cigar in one hand, the other with a glass of single malt resting on the lawyerly paunch, holding forth with the notion that telling the voters they were DEAD WRONG a mere 2 years earlier is some pathway to victory. Go “team elephant!” I believe the voters are smarter than this (I have been wrong a time or two on that opinion, but hope springs eternal) and I wish my party would lead the way in developing thoughtful, well-designed mail that respects the intelligence of those we are trying to reach. The business will not reform itself, it is going to take the candidates demanding that their consultants and contractors raise the bar and work for the hearts and minds and votes of the citizens whose support is needed. RESPECT us, please.

On the contrary, Cynthia, I’m sure that I have missed not one, but MANY things — unfortunately the lawyerly paunch is not among them — but I am paddling as fast as I can! Only one more month to go! (I’m telling my body that so that Tuesday comes as a welcome surprise to it and it doesn’t just drop to the ground as I approach the finish line.)

I love — LOVE! — that her photo gallery is entitled “Clients”! It should be entitled “Paid Extras”!

It is tremendously insulting, and I am sorry to see it. I’m proud, though, that Newman’s material is so sharp and clean by comparison!

At some point (probably pretty early on) the comparatively few people who actually do not throw this shit out with the rest of the junk mail resent having thier intelligence insulted by assholes like Gilliard and Bieber who actually LIKE what they do for a living and who serve as exemplars for a monkey named Chris Nguyen (who happily passed along this shit on his blog and was so enamored of it he basically wrote it twice.

It was “cross-posted” to Jerbal Cunningham’s “respectable” blog, because ya know, these turds love to float in the same bowl.

Apparently I am not permitted to comment on that blog so I will do it here. With my comments in parentheses.

Shady, Deceptive Business Practices Dog Senate Candidate Josh Newman

(No, just repeatedly peddled by low-lifes like you)

Posted by Chris Nguyen on November 1, 2016

Josh Newman
Senate Candidate Josh Newman
Cross-Posted to OC Daily

To hear 29th State Senate District Candidate Josh Newman tell it, he’s the most misunderstood guy in the world.

(Of course as a “business development/marketing” VP – the description you thoughtfully provide, below – he would have had little or no knowledge of what was going on the operations or tech side, but who cares, right?)

He says more customers who found their privacy invaded during his tenure as an executive at RealNetworks also apparently misunderstood him.

(See above)

And San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan must have misunderstood him when he accused Newman of misappropriating confidential police files and using them in a smear campaign against Jordan.

(Now tell me, Big Man, how in the world did “confidential police files” get into the possesion of the Mayor’s campaign office which is where Newman supposedly swiped them? Did the mayor ever explain that rather impossible little detail to his fawning reporter?)

Is Josh Newman simply misunderstood?

A female San Francisco intimate apparel executive didn’t think so, after Newman openly admitted that he forged Mayor Jordan’s signature on the Mayor’s stationery in order to get a date with her while working for Jordan. An associate of the executive circulated the letter without her approval.

(Just repeating the same shit doesn’t make it true, boy)

San Francisco Supervisor (and future Senator) Carole Migden didn’t think so, saying “Josh Newman has left a trail of bloodletting. The phones ring off the hook from allegations from him.”

(Well this at least is new. Too bad there isn’t a scrap of evidence to support this comment from a buddy of the mayor that allegedly occurred 30 years ago)

The courts don’t think so. SendMe, Inc. was the defendant in one county-level and six federal lawsuits filed between 2008 and 2014 for so-called “cramming,” a deceptive billing practice of adding charges to customer’s phone bills without their authorization or knowledge. A $63-million settlement resulted. Newman was Senior Vice President of Business Development.

(See comment above)

RealNetworks was the subject of 15 county-level and over 55 federal lawsuits over copyright infringement and interference in customer licensing relationships over DVD movies and songs between 1999 and 2005, resulting in a $20-million settlement. Eventually RealNetworks was forced into involuntary bankruptcy proceedings. Newman was Director of Marketing.

(See comment above)

Former San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan didn’t think so, accusing Newman of unethical behavior and possible theft after his resignation. Jordan referred the matter to the San Francisco District Attorney for further investigation.

(See comment above)

The public record suggests that Newman may not be misunderstood at all. Rather, he may have a self-destructive personality that makes him particularly unsuited to hold public office, especially in the California State Senate.

(Actually, the “public record” suggests none of the bullshit you casually regurgitate at the behest of scum suckers who are only slightly scummier than you are.

The actual story of those criminal files is even funnier. HE NEVER SWIPED THEM AT ALL!

Newman was working in the campaign office (to where someone, presumably Jordan or another officer, transported the files), and at the end of the campaign was giving the task of clearing out the office. JORDAN LEFT THE SENSITIVE FILES THERE. IN A BOX. Newman gathered up the stuff that was left, UNREAD, and took it all to his house to store it in case it turned out that anyone had left something they had wanted to keep. All of the material, of which this was A SMALL PART, sat there for two years — and which point Newman came across it again and decided that enough time had gone by that he could throw it all out.

A friend of his asked him if he could look through it. Josh said (to paraphrase) — “sure, it’s all just trash” — which IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE GIVEN THAT IT WAS NOT REMOVED FROM THE CAMPAIGN OFFICE AFTER THE END OF THE ELECTION — “and it going to the curb.”

THE FRIEND found the material within the box and gave it to a reporter. Jordan turned on Newman because he needed someone to blame for HIS OWN misbehavior. That was why he asked the DA to investigate Newman; the DA did and snickered, because there was no basis for prosecution. And THAT is when the “underwear” letter, previously understood to be a lighthearted prank, came out and was suddenly given sinister shadings by Mayor Jordan’s people.

And OF COURSE Dave Gilliard found it, because he was frantically looking for anything, ANYTHING, incriminating to take the focus off of Lying-Lying Chang.

Yeah, but in the end they just started making up “facts” that weren’t even supported by a super-charged creativity.

The KleptoKrew® are doing the same thing in Anaheim where they make a sweeping assertion – “________ is a dangerous socialist!” and then cite the OC Weekly(!) from 2012 where no such thing was ever asserted by anybody.

Wouldn’t it be fun to get hold of some of the photos of Gilliard and Schroeder where they are dressed up together in women’s underpants?

(I just supposed such pictures might exist somewhere, but I have no evidence. But see, somebody later can even cite this blog: “some have speculated that Gilliard and Schoreder attended all-night lingerie dress-up parties at Mike’s beach house.”

If there’s a need to expose your opponent for actions dishonorable enough it should keep him/her out of office, that’s one thing, but to use your status, and endorsements for severely distorting charming dialogue into vile, disgusting criminal behavior is so unconscionable that you have no business running for office to represent anyone.

Josh’s one, AND ONLY ONE, letter was a play on words with a friend in the apparel manufacturing business, who in an earlier conversation said, “A lot of people don’t realize that we make so much more than underpants”. Josh reflected on that conversation in his whimsical letter to her, which was warmly embraced as the fun, and friendly banter it was.

Silly? So what? We’ve all done something silly in our young lives, but Chang is not silly. No, she is a childish bully. Finding nothing tangible to pin on Josh, she assassinated his innocent and good deeds like his one whimsical letter, and his lovable California Bear suit campaigning. These so called “incriminations” only indicate that Josh Newman is a man with a heart and personality. A man who cares enough about his constituents and friends to make them smile.

As a woman, my intellect is insulted by Chang’s obvious invention of sex crimes by a good hearted family man. As an advocate for domestic violence awareness, I’m appalled that a woman in such a relied upon position would take a road so predatory as to exploit, and disrespect survivors of sexual crimes, and domestic violence to meet her end.

Believe It Or Not. Din-a-Ling’s website has a tab called “The Truth.” And this is what it says about her previous distant relationship with the truth about herself:

Ling Ling told a reporter that she attended UC Riverside and the reporter admitted erroneously reporting that Chang graduated. But, information from that article was eventually repeated in other stories and locations, which Assemblywoman Chang never saw.

Chang grew up in Diamond Bar (been in Diamond Bar since 5th grade) and has said so on several occasions. But, some have taken those words and concluded she was born in Diamond Bar. That is not true. She was born in Taiwan and has told voters she is an immigrant in her campaign materials in both 2014 and 2016. In fact, she first lived in the neighboring city of Walnut before moving to Diamond Bar.

As was widely reported in 2014, Ling Ling attended a degree program at Harvard Extension school, which is part on-line and part residency at Harvard. The program requires admittance and is only available to those accepted into the program.

During her 2014 campaign, Assemblywoman Chang noted that she avoids reading about herself and never noticed that there were erroneous reports about her background.

___________________________

First, note how poor Ling ling is actually just a poor victim of other peoples’ errors and misinterpretations; and her own natural modesty precluded her from reading all about the errors and getting them fixed! Poor Little Ling, what’s a shrinking violet to do?

Of course the real story is different, a tale of clumsy fabrications designed to make a (justifiably) insecure nobody look like somebody.

The fact is her birthplace was in a bio listed on the Diamond Bar city website and there is absolutely no way some staffer posted her biography there without getting it directly from Ling Ling herself. So first she lied and then she lied again, throwing some low-level functionary in the City Clerk’s office under her bus.

And notice the fuzzy language that still shrouds this mysterious Harvard program. You can circle that statement all day long and you’ll never find a disprovable fact there, let alone some real proof, such as: Here’s the sheepskin, see? VE-RI-TAS, Ling Ling’s a Harvard graduated truthteller!

Actually writing the word veritas in the same sentence as “Ling Ling” makes me sort of angry.